Members of the Jewish community held a rally Sunday in Boston to call attention to what they describe as growing antisemitism on college campuses as the war in Gaza continues.
The rally, attended by hundreds, was held at Temple Israel of Boston in support of Jewish students across the country.
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As the Jewish community celebrates Passover, calls for combatting anti-Semitism on college campuses is at an all-time high.
"The kind of discourse and the kind of language used in the protests here, it’s very violent. Very anti-Semitic. When you hear your fellow students chanting things like 'From the River To the Sea, long live the intifada,' or your home state and invalidate your existence, you can't really go along and go to class and pretend everything is fine,” an Emerson freshman said.
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Students, Jewish groups and more gathered Sunday on Longwood Avenue to call on universities to enforce their own policies when it comes to demonstrations.
“I’m at Columbia and what we’ve witnessed over the last six months is an escalation from simple violent rhetoric to war violent rhetoric including calling for death to the Zionist state. For Jews to go back to Poland, telling us we have no culture, and actual violence and assault on campus,” Elisha Baker said. “You cannot bully Jewish students off of campus.”
Encampment protests are continuing to pop up on campuses across the country in support of Palestinians in Gaza, including at MIT, Harvard, Emerson, Tufts and Northeastern. In several cases, they've resulted in student arrests. Emerson College has announced they will not be putting forth disciplinary charges against their students who partook in protests last week.
The Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) Center for Combating Antisemitism is hoping to unify the Jewish community during this time.
“As you know, many of them are feeling attacked, harassed, vilified, and we’re here to stand up and raise our voices and say we will not tolerate this here in Boston,” CJP president and CEO Marc Baker said.
